Entry Level Gaming PC - Which Build?

johnGrisham · Dec 27, 2013

Hiya,

I'm putting together an entry level gaming pc for my brother. His funds are extremely tight @ around £250. He has ALL the peripherals, and as such is literally just wanting a case/CPU/Mobo/RAM/PSU/GFX/HDD. NO Operating Sys required.

The aim of the build is to get it so it literally just plays most games in the past 5 years at ~30 fps on low/medium, nothing spectacular.

I've found two possible rigs as follows:

RIG 1:

CPU: AMD FM2 A4 5300 Dual Core CPU 3.4Ghz
RAM: 4gb DDR3 1600mhz Corsair Vengeance Memory
Mobo: Gigabyte F2A55M-HD2
Graphics: R7 250 2gb ddr3
Case: Zalman Mini T3 Black
PSU: 500 W
HDD: 500gb

----------------------------------------

or this rig:

RIG 2:

CPU: AMD A4 4000 Dual Core 3.2GHz
RAM: 4GB generic RAM (I believe)
Mobo: ASRock A55M-DGS
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD7750 1GB + integrated HD7480D
Case: Generic cheap case
PSU: Generic 500 W (I believe)
HDD: 500gb

------------------------------------------

Given my requirements, which rig is the right one to buy?

Have you guys got any other ideas given the budget restrictions?

Thanks in advance for the help!

Sylvanriv · Dec 27, 2013

Neither. You can get a better build for just about the same price; it's ten pounds over, but if you need to stick EXACTLY to the budget, you could either drop the optical drive or get an A6 processor instead. It's 260 pounds because generally 8 GB of RAM is just such an upgrade from 4 GB that it's really good to have it.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A8-5600K 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor (£64.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI FM2-A75MA-P33 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard (£37.72 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Elite 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (£32.00 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£26.98 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£34.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.98 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £260.81
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-27 17:14 GMT+0000)

johnGrisham · Dec 27, 2013

It doesn't have to be exactly to the budget no. I don't think he will need a DVD drive regardless, as I haven't used mine in eons.

I appreciate your answer, I didn't realise the ram would make THAT much of a difference, but I appear to be wrong.

I notice you didn't recommend any dedicated graphics card at all. Are you suggesting I make do with the integrated HD 7560D from the APU due to budget constraints?

Sylvanriv · Dec 27, 2013

That's what I was saying, yes. The RAM will make a great deal of difference if you have an integrated graphics chip. The A4 might even bottleneck the GPU in your build. This should perform Ok.

sora · Dec 29, 2013

Sylvanriv :

This, the A4 is pretty outdated IMO.

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Entry Level Gaming PC - Which Build?

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